


Breathe.

by Corvid_Knight



Category: Homestuck
Genre: But it helps, Earth C (Homestuck), Fluff, M/M, Nightmares, breath powers, dirk is such a control freak that this is. really hard for him, my tumblr is knight-of-heart-and-art
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-18
Updated: 2018-01-18
Packaged: 2019-03-06 09:44:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13408611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corvid_Knight/pseuds/Corvid_Knight
Summary: Dirk wakes up from a nightmares and John uses Breath powers to get him to calm down again. Just. Fluff. Have some fluff.





	Breathe.

You're already sitting up when the rough sounds of your own breathing bring you all the way awake, and he's got his hands on your shoulders. The dreaming half of your brain is trying to scream that it's someone else touching you, that the gentleness is a fucking trick. 

Thankfully there's another half of your brain that recognizes that the room smells like plants and night air instead of either machine oil or sea scents, and you don't actually try to punch him out this time. (You apologized over and over again last time it happened, but he was too busy rolling around on the floor trying not to laugh or ruin the carpet with his bloody nose to really respond.) No murderbots. No empress. Just—

"John." It comes out soft and rough and not quite a whisper, and even in the dark you can see tension leave his shoulders as you prove that you're not completely out of it this time. But you want—need?—more confirmation than just your own recognition. "John?" 

"Yeah. Me." One hand comes up from your shoulder to your face, tracing from your cheek to nose to lips to chin. He's almost blind without his glasses in the best of conditions, and this is decidedly less than optimal. His face is maybe six inches from yours and he's still squinting. "Nightmare?" 

"Mm." As noncommittal a noise as you can make. This time was a mix of flashbacks than nightmares, really, and as much about your ectosibling as it was about you. It still fucks you up how your treasured companion was Dave's tormenter, even if you're very careful not to talk about it. 

Or think about Cal any more than necessary, really. 

You're definitely thinking about him now, though. The dream doesn't stop running through your mind. 

_Tied up and helpless; she's laughing at you and pausing every so often to carve another line into your skin before she goes right back to using her freaky psionic shit to do_ something _to your beloved puppet and his eyes are going as bright and sinister and cruel as hers now and once she's done you know precisely where he's destined for and if you fight hard enough you can escape your bonds and make this stop and keep him safe but the harder you struggle the tighter the ropes get and someone somewhere is laughing at you with a voice that sounds like badly oiled gears_ —

"Dirk? Dirk. _Dirk._ " John has almost certainly been saying your name for a bit now. "Look at me. And _breathe._ " 

"I _am_ breathing." You've always been bad at lying to him. It's a struggle to not stop in the middle of that statement and gasp in a lungful of air. "I—" 

"Shut up." One finger goes across your lips; his other hand finds your hand and pulls it up to rest palm-flat on his chest. He's gentle. "C'mon, you know how this goes. Relax. Let me help." 

"...yeah." Releasing control is hard. It always is. If it was anyone else coaxing you, you'd never be able to do it. But this is John, and he knows how you are. He waits for you to take a deep breath (you don't need it, he's going to make sure you don't need it) and nod at him before he sighs and squeezes your hand and pushes every iota of air out of his lungs.

And out of yours. 

It's frightening. He's done this a hundred times before, and just like every time, you have just enough space to be terrified that he won't let you have oxygen again before he breathes in with you. You trust him completely, like you trust no one else, and because of that your moment of fear is nothing short of shameful. 

_Inhale through the nose for four. Hold for six. Exhale through the mouth for seven. Again._ He's the one using his powers to keep air moving through you, but you count off the rhythm in your head anyway. Control, you always have to have some kind of control, and it's a fucking weakness but that's how you are. Even the illusion of control is better than nothing. 

John is very careful to let you have that illusion. He's the one directing everything here, but he's timing it to your heartbeat, and his rhythm and your count stay synched up perfectly until he leans forward and presses his lips against yours and you realize that he stopped doing anything to you several cycles ago. But now you don't need him to be controlling you quite as much as you did anymore. Now you really are breathing evenly on your own. 

"I'm fine," you tell him when he draws back from the kiss.

"Fine like you're going to lie down and wait for me to fall asleep so you can get up and get yourself an energy drink?" 

He knows you so well. "No. Fine like I want to lie back down and hold you until it's actually morning." You do. You want that really fucking badly right now, even if you keep your voice perfectly calm. 

You can't make out how he's rolling his eyes, but you know he's doing it as he snorts and pulls you back down so he can curl against you. "You should _sleep,_ " he mumbles into your ear as you pull him over half on top of yourself. "You almost never have more than one bad dream in a night..." 

_Yeah, because I don't sleep after the first one._

You don't say that. You don't actually say anything. What you do is make a noise that probably has a little bit of resemblance to a tired and slightly annoyed cat. And you press your face into his hair so you're breathing in the cool safe scent of him. 

And you relax. As hard as it is to do, you let yourself go quiet and limp under him and stop trying to anticipate what might be coming.

And maybe sleeping is more terrifying than being caught with no air in your lungs, but you feel his weight on you and you close your eyes anyway. He's here. It'll be alright. You'll be alright. 


End file.
